Things I Will Do Once This Course I’m Teaching is Finished
This afternoon I gave my last lecture for the class I’m teaching. It was a short one because it was just an exam review and my students clapped for me at the end, which totally caught me off guard¹. The exam for the class is next week and I can’t *wait* have all the exams marked and be done the class. Don’t get me wrong, I *loved* teaching the class, but, damn, it’s a lot of work. I know that any time you teach a class for the first time, it’s a ridiculous amount of work, but it’s one thing to “know” that and a totally other thing to live it. So I’m looking forward to having some time back because I was totally getting burnt out from the lack of sleep². And now, a list.
Some of the things that I’m going to do once I have the exams marked:
- clean my apartment, for the first time in I don’t even know how long, including vacuuming, cleaning my icky microwave and doing battle with the sentient lifeforms that have evolved in my bathroom
- my taxes
- scrapbooking my photos from 2000-2008, inclusive
- sleep
¹Is this common? I’ve never seen students clap for their instructor before, but maybe it’s what kids do these days. Or maybe they were totally fucking with me. Or could have been because I said I’d be perfectly happy if everyone got an A.
²This may also have something to do with taking on a few different contracts and spending a weekend in Vegas.
Comments |7|
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I think sleep is definitely in the cards for me too 🙂 once I finish four journal articles and two grant proposals and two comments back for an evaluation of a project I’m doing. Ah, and blogging too 🙂
Hope you’re doing well Beth.
Cheers,
Raul
http://hummingbird604.wordpress.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/hummingbird604
They sometimes clap for me, Beth, at the end of a course. I graciously take a bow… or maybe they’re just fucking with me as well. I notice that only the first year students do this. Perhaps by second year they’ve learned that it has no effect on their grade.
Oh, well. It’s always nice for them to pretend to like us.
Oh I forgot to respond to that. They also clap for me at the end of my courses. But that usually comes after I’ve given them a speech (which is very heartfelt) about how much I care for their future.
Regarding note 2 and being burnt out: yes, I think to say you spread yourself way too thin this term is understating things dramatically.
With respect to taxes: we’re still sharing Quicken, right? Because I need to do mine soon.
But overall: congratulations!
@Raul – 4 papers and 2 grant proposals? That makes me tired just reading that!
@Ian – These guys are third years. Wish I’d had the wherewithal to have graciously taken a bow… I think I just stood there looking stunned and blushing!
@Kalev – Quicken – yes, absolutely! I will bring it when we meet up this week. Maybe I could trade you for the Bluetooth Palm Pilot keyboard that you offered?
Hiding my real name so my mark won’t get affected
No, we do not fuck around with your head when we clap. I guess it’s kind of a mob mentality. One person starts, others follow for some odd reason. Unless you really blow it during the term, like majorly pissed everyone off, you should get claps. What would piss people off? Making the class too confusing and/or everything is confusing.
(I really should be *studying* for 370 right now)
On a side note, not everyone is in 3rd year, some of us are 4th, even 5th like me.
(Reading a prof blog is weird but refreshing. Yes, this is what kids might do when they don’t want to study. You must have went through it too :p Oooooo, turn off MSN in class, please. It made me giggle.)
@ Student A – My OWN students read my personal blog. And it’s true, they find it refreshing. It gives them a perspective they couldn’t have gotten otherwise.
@ Beth – papers not writing themselves 🙁 boohoo